By TOM O’LINCOLN, 10 February, 2007
Yesterday’s one-day cricket match was riveting much of the time, but again and again my eyes drifted over to the zone around Bay 13, where another struggle was unfolding. You’ve probably heard Cricket Australia is trying to ban the Mexican Wave.
But the Wave kept happening, and each time it got to us we joined in, with that delightful little frisson you get from defying authority. MCG management put up a slide on the scoreboard saying this evil practice was banned. Boo hiss. Here comes another Wave - and the big crowd roars!
Now I’m not ultraleft about these things. Some bans are necessary. Obviously we support the one on racist sledging; and remembering one or two idiotic drunken moments of my own at the football years ago, I disagree with Barmy Army leader Craig Gill who wants to bring back full strength beer.
While I thought the Big Day Out promoters’ plans to ban the Australian flag were a tactical error, I sympathized with what they were trying to do - combat racist groups.
I’ve pretty much decided that suppressing the Wave is stupid, particularly after reading claims about cups of urine flying about; I remember with disdain the “urine-filled condom” urban myths used against left demonstrations in the past. But still, you might change my mind with hard evidence of physical danger.
What interested me much more than these rights and wrongs was watching the struggle itself unfold. Early in the match, you could see the security personnel were out in force, and not just to collect beach balls. The yellow jackets kept moving, and Patrons Were Ejected From The Ground at a cracking pace.
But they couldn’t stop the Mexican Wave. Without binoculars I couldn’t tell who had done what, so early in the match it’s possible the security managed to grab people who started Waves. This was their tactic: it was forbidden to start a Wave, not to join one already underway, so grab the ring-leaders. But there were too many troublemakers to arrest them all; and soon the insurgency fine-tuned its tactics.
A group to our left, around Bay 10, began drumming. Not on the scrolling signboards – which is also banned – but on seat backs. Whenever the drumming started, the crowd way over in Bay 18 stood up and the Wave began. It struck me that the ones starting the Wave were the drummers, but how could you prove that?
This all continued into the evening. Waves went round and round the “G”, lasting longer than usual. The power of the people is greater than the Man’s security teams.
The security teams had other things to do of course. We saw a teenager dashing away from them into the crowd, but they caught him, then slammed him down face first onto the concrete steps. Another raced onto the field, but he only got about 10 steps before they nabbed him. He was led away, a hero to his mates but not much more.
I don’t mean to idealise the Mexican Wave rebels; probably we wouldn’t like many of them close up. Some are probably sexist oafs. But the point is that forces of order deal with individual actions so easily. It was mass action, with effective leadership, that beat them.